(Closed) Catholic Church Issues

As if I wasn’t stressed enough about getting married May 2, now we are having problems with our church.

My FH and I live in MN, but we are getting married in WI. So, the priest in WI told us to take our classes in MN and they would transfer over to WI. Our paperwoek would have to go through the Arch Diocese of St. Paul, then be forwarded on to the Diocese of Madison and then on to our WI church.

We took our classes in Oct and thought were ahead of the game, now it’s Jan and the WI church still does not have our paperwork. We’ve called the deacon we were working with here in MN and the Diocse of Madison and no one seems able to find our paperwork. I need to get invitations printed!!!

Has anyone dealt with a situation like this? Did you have as many difficulties?

Thanks for giving me the idea of showing the WI priest the certificate. We have been in contact with the Madison Diocese and our MN deacon and everyone seems to take a week to get back to us and usually with no solid answer.

I am talking to the WI priest on Monday (hopefully) so I can ask hi about the certificate thing.

Not sure how you’re communicating with them but phone calls are really the way to go in this sitaution. If you’re dealing via email it’s hard to show the uuuuurgency!!! So I’d suggest a phone call with a deadline "I need this by xx date" once you give a deadline it usually makes people move a little quicker.

I second the phone-call or in-person approach. We did our marriage prep in Maryland and got married in Georgia, and showing our certificate to the priest in GA was all we needed to do. If you do give them a "need-by date," make sure it’s at least a week earlier than the date you really need it by! Good luck!

I called the priest that will be marrying us, he gave me the number for the tribunal in WI. Called them, the personal who could find our stuff is not in, they will call us back tomorrow. Called the tribunal in MN. The girl I talked to did not seem to know what she was talking about. Said all I needed was our class certificate. I called our WI priest again and asked him if a certificate was ok and he said no, the girl didn’t know what she was talking about.

I feel like I have had the same conversations with people over and over again for the last 2 weeks. We have gotten no where. What do I do if I don’t get an answer in time?? Do I get the invites printed and hope everything works out or do I just give up on the catholic church thing??

Who actually conducted the class? Could you get in touch with them to have them fill out the paperwork again? If you don’t personally have their number, maybe you could get it from the church. Or have the church leave them a message. Also my experience with working in a church is that almost anyone who is doing something (committees. sacrament prep, whatever) is that they all have a mailbox. You could leave a note there. If you have some kind of directory, you could try to find their info there (phone, e-mail.)

Also, yes, check to see if there is pre-cana class you can take in one day. My pre-cana was a long Saturday, one shot deal. It isn’t the best, but you could then actually go to WI to get it done. Maybe the WI priest could help you with this.

Perhaps you could go to the man you took classes from in your home locale and sit down and call WI with him there. Maybe his voice (literally) in the mix would help resolve the situation faster. It might be a pain to take off work and schedule the call but it might work out better?

Have you talked to a priest in person where you’re currently living about this situation?

My FH and I are having issues right now with getting his confirmation certificate. The parish he was confirmed claims to have lost the record, and the priest who oversaw his RCIA and confirmation (this was about 5 years ago) past away.

We’re not trying to see if the Arch Diocese has the record. If not, I’ve been told we’d need to get an affidavid with the witnesses of his confirmation that they witnessed a Catholic Confirmation. Other then that, we can only think he would have to be conditionally confirmed. He’s talked to a priest he at the parish he goes to Mass at regularly though and I don’t think a conditional confirmation will be necessary.

But now I’m just determined that whenever my kids get the sacraments, that I request a copy of the certificate and keep it on file for myself.